Epishow makes podcast creation easy with all-in-one platform

Epishow makes podcast creation easy with all-in-one platform

Podcasting is gaining popularity. In the past decade, the number of podcast listeners have doubled to 17 percent of the American population. But while the podcast audience is growing, the podcasting technology hasn’t changed at all. Randall Bennett wants to change that with his new podcasting platform, Epishow.

Typically, creating a podcast takes several steps. You have to buy the right equipment, record and edit the audio, convert the file, host the file and link it to iTunes for distribution. It’s time consuming and may not be intuitive. Bennett’s Epishow fixes that. With Epishow, both computer speakers (for both the host and the interviewee) record the show via a web browser.

“There’s lots of consumption factors that have changed but production has never changed and that’s disgusting to me,” Bennett said. “It’s been frustrating me for 10 years now, so it’s probably time to fix it.”

This new product comes after Bennett’s previous entrepreneurial endeavor, Vidpresso, a company that helps you use social media in live productions. The company went through Y-Combinator and raised money, but has since fallen flat.

I used Epishow when interviewing Bennett. While the product is still in Beta, I was able to log on and quickly start up the video and audio and start recording. Once we finished, Bennett clicked one button and 10 minutes later the audio file was in my inbox.

“My vision is that literally everyone on the planet will do a podcast, just like they use Twitter,” Bennett said. “Everyone should be able to experiment with audio and video with no budget. They should be able to create something, snackable content, without having to buy a microphone or learn software.”

Bennett is no stranger to podcasting. In 2005 he worked at Engadget as the first podcast producer who was not a host. He also worked in TV at KSL and Justin.TV. It was during this time that he realized video and audio should is unnecessarily hard to produce, he said. He had a vision for a world where anyone can create and share quality video and audio content.

So, he ventured into entrepreneurship and started Vidpresso. He hoped this would be his break to help bring his vision to life, he said. But, things don’t always work out the way we plan. Vidpresso raised $400,000, but hit a plateau.

“The market won’t support Vidpresso,” Bennett said. “I’m not good at enterprise sales and I didn’t set the company up for that.”

Now, Bennett is using Vidpresso as a jumping platform. The company creates enough revenue to sustain itself and allow him to work on his new project, Epishow.

“Vidpresso was a really good wedge but didn’t have a fast path out of it,” Bennett said. “We had a slow path and were sort of stuck. Epishow feels like a. people want it b. there’s a need. If we can really get it figured out, there’s something there.”

The product is in Beta and the team is working hard to make sure it works 100 percent of the time. They are adding new features everyday.